1. Ardustat:
A case study in Open Source Hardware in
Academic Engineering
Dan Steingart
Printed/Electrochemical Engineering Lab
City College of New York Department of Chemical Engineering
City University of New York Energy Institute
Open Source Hardware Summit, September 23rd 2010

2. Why is this so hard?

3. It’s Not
• Everyone used to make their own
potentiostat/galvanostats
• Companies formed to streamline and
standardize such units
• People “forgot” how to make their own
• or rather, the institutional knowledge was not
passed on

4. Commercial Devices
Arbin
~$1000/channel Gamry
Maccor ~$10000/channel
~$1500/channel
PAR Autolab
~$13000/
~$15000/ channel
channel

5. These Devices
• Are all very good at what they’re
designed to do
• Are sold by folks that are knowledgable
and can abstract internal functionality
sufficiently for the modern material
scientist/chemist/electrochemist
• Are complete black boxes

6. “The Things You Own End Up Owning You”
• The abstraction, cost and inflexibility of
these devices define the experiment, which
defines the experimentalist
• The experimentalist needs to have access
to tools that allow her to define the
experiment

7. But
• Time is so short
• There is so much science to learn
• Circuit engineering is the realm of EE/CS

8. The Ardustat
• Arduino based Galvanostat/Potentiostat
• A first crack at creating something that
those interested in hacking can improve,
and those interested in science can exploit
• The hope is (eventually):
• Shared knowledge reduce the learning
curve
• Companies sell units for a “fair price”

9. The Ardustat

10. Comparison
Ardustat Commercial
Current Range 100 nA to 10 mA 1 fA to 10 A
Potential Range ±5V ± 10 V
Resolution 10 Bit 16 Bit
CV Yes Yes
EIS Not Yet Yes
Cost $60/channel $1000+/channel
Hackable Yes No

11. Cost and Hackability Are Key
• Screening
• Training
• Defining

12. Screen
• Many combinations in a parallel fashion

13. rrently four undergraduate students, including one underrepresented minority, are performing researc
ated to the printer. Two chemical engineering undergraduates are examining the use of the IJ Fisna
Train
nter along with a Universal Laser Systems Versalaser 6.60 to rapid prototype batteries into flexibl
bstrates. Two mechanical engineering undergraduates are improving the IJ Fisnar system, addin
mputer vision for automated alignment of multiple layers. Both of these projects are in anticipation o
ther work to be carried out as described in section 2. The work of the chemical engineering students i
cused on qualitative studies of adhesion strength and delamination of printed structures on flexibl
• Students on robust, low cost equipment
bstrate, assisting the PI in determining quantitative parameters. The computer vision work i
eliminary to the complementary fiber woodpile structures discussed in section 2.3. One high schoo
dent is preparing ZnI2 cells using the IJ Fisnar printer and the laser cutter.
gure 12) High school student (left) and undergraduate student (right) preparing various aspects of a printed batter
3. Rapid Prototyping of Electrochemical Systems with Stuyvesant High School
encourage young students to explore engineering, the PI is collaborating with Stuyvesant High Schoo

14. Define
• New Experimental Techniques

15. Why Not Labview/NI
• Labview allows modification, but not
reinvention
• In my humble experience, folks learned
in lab view are walled off from just about
all other hardware solutions

16. What’s Needed
• Not GCC
• Not Labview
• The Arduino is a great start
• Sciduino Anyone?